North Carolina AT&T LTE coverage

I just made a trip from Charlotte to Raleigh and back. My iPhone 5 said "4G" in the status bar the whole time. Per AT&T's coverage map, both of these cities should have LTE coverage.

Are other North Carolinians getting LTE in the status bar? If not, does this have something to do with these cities only having 10 MHz of spectrum instead of 20? Someone said we only get LTE data and not voice so the status bar won't display LTE... Is that true? How do I know if I'm getting LTE data or HSPA+?

Just want to make sure there is nothing wrong with my LTE antenna. Speeds haven't been all that impressive so far. About 6 mb down tops.

I just made a trip from Charlotte to Raleigh and back. My iPhone 5 said "4G" in the status bar the whole time. Per AT&T's coverage map, both of these cities should have LTE coverage.

Are other North Carolinians getting LTE in the status bar? If not, does this have something to do with these cities only having 10 MHz of spectrum instead of 20? Someone said we only get LTE data and not voice so the status bar won't display LTE... Is that true? How do I know if I'm getting LTE data or HSPA+?

Just want to make sure there is nothing wrong with my LTE antenna. Speeds haven't been all that impressive so far. About 6 mb down tops.

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I would go buy a ATT store and ask them for a new nano sim. I had to do that for a mifi I got from ATT and they replaced the SIM and LTE worked.

The problem for me turned out to be that my IMEI had not been updated, and thus my account was not provisioned properly on at&t's back end for LTE use. If you did a cross-upgrade with another line on your account, that could account for it.

I would go buy a ATT store and ask them for a new nano sim. I had to do that for a mifi I got from ATT and they replaced the SIM and LTE worked.

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I'm not sure that this would solve the problem in every instance . . .in fact, if you're using an iPhone 5 and you're getting a 4G signal, then your SIM is almost certainly not going to be the issue. The mifi situation may be different, in that it needed to be updated from a 3G to an LTE compatible sim.

I live 20 miles outside of Raleigh on the Wake County and Johnston County line. The closest incorporated town is Garner which is 10 miles away. That said, I get 4 bars LTE in my back yard and 2 in my house granting me 12 Mbps down and 10.3 Mbps up.

Interesting. Talhanks for the info guys. Stupid AT&T tech support told me that I was getting LTE and 4G were the same. She was surprised when I called we on it and offered no explanation. This is a new AT&T line... Not upgraded from an old phone. I will stop by a AT&T store and see if they can help.

I have also noticed that when I disable LTE in settings, I get no data connection at all. No 3G or anything. And when I try to turn it back on, 4G won't even come back. I have to reboot phone to get data again.

The problem for me turned out to be that my IMEI had not been updated, and thus my account was not provisioned properly on at&t's back end for LTE use. If you did a cross-upgrade with another line on your account, that could account for it.

You should be seeing LTE in those areas.

Good Luck!

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I'm not sure that this would solve the problem in every instance . . .in fact, if you're using an iPhone 5 and you're getting a 4G signal, then your SIM is almost certainly not going to be the issue. The mifi situation may be different, in that it needed to be updated from a 3G to an LTE compatible sim.

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The mifi was getting the 4G signal fine, problem was even in the dead of Raleigh with LTE all around all it saw was 4G. It can't hurt to go by a ATT store as it solved my issue.

Maxpower,
I have an unlimited data plan and was told in the Apple store by an AT&T rep it was set up as Unlimited 4g. She couldn't change it on her end and told me to call 611 to get the IMEI attached to my account as "unlimited LTE". Once I did that, it changed from 4G to LTE within 10 minutes.

Thanks guys. I stopped by the AT&T store this afternoon and got it straightened out. They checked the imei and sai pd it was fine. Replaced the sim card and that worked.

The AT&T tech said that some of the phones ought from apple shipped with older sim cards. Not sure if that is true or not... Just passing it along in case anyone else runs into the same issue.

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Were you not getting LTE at all before the sim change? I can get LTE in certain parts of my city. When on it, the speeds have been much slower than HSPA+. I was at the airport this morning and spiked at 46mbps. I'm on HSPA+ almost everywhere else though.

It doesn't sound right that you would have an old sim. This is the first phone to ship with a nano sim. They should all be LTE ready.

Were you not getting LTE at all before the sim change? I can get LTE in certain parts of my city. When on it, the speeds have been much slower than HSPA+. I was at the airport this morning and spiked at 46mbps. I'm on HSPA+ almost everywhere else though.

It doesn't sound right that you would have an old sim. This is the first phone to ship with a nano sim. They should all be LTE ready.

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I never once got LTE until they swapped the sim. Had my phone since Friday. No idea what the problem was... just glad it is fixed now. My battery life is also much better now. I guess it was constantly searching or trying to connect to LTE before?

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